GLP's best Fuku thread: Thread: *** Fukushima *** and other nuclear-----updates and linkstwitter: #citizenperth“If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on it, I would use the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I knew the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.”- Albert Einstein

During an interview with television network TBS, Abe said new reactors would be different from those at Fukushima that were crippled by the earthquake and tsunami of 2011, according to major news outlets. [link to www.japantoday.com] .

Happy New Year to you, Bug! Consider this little rag tag group a friendly oasis on the GLP crazy pages.

Quoting: Southern OR

Thanks, SO. You are dead on, as usual.. I guess we should enjoy it and talk more.. Windy was right about the thread being kinda boring.I just didn't want it to turn into a free-for-all, as it did on fuku 1.

Family enjoys New Year's at home near nuclear plant during short-term stayUnder a starry sky, the Ono family enjoyed their first New Year celebration in their home here in almost two years during a short-term stay permitted by the government.

The area around the home of 80-year-old Toshimitsu Ono remained off-limits until April last year as a result of the catastrophe at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, which contaminated the vicinity with radioactive materials. The same month the status of the area was changed to allow temporary entry but overnight stays were forbidden.----A total of 525 people, including 16 from Kawauchi, pre-registered for the stays -- less than 7 percent of the possible number of people. Reasons people decided not to take up the opportunity included that their houses, which had fallen into disrepair during the extended evacuation period, would be inconvenient to stay in. At the same time, some people disapprove of the idea of returning altogether, saying that even if they did return, they couldn't get their old lives back. Kawauchi, which in January 2012 became the first municipality to declare it was allowing residents to return, has only had around 1,000 residents come back. Around a third of residents remain evacuated.

When discussing the lack of lights in nearby houses, Toshimitsu's voice darkened as he said, "I understand there are people who don't want to return." Looking at the town, with temperatures nearly below freezing, he added, "But if no one returns first, the town won't return to its former self. I don't want to end my life in a temporary home. I think that recovery will start from us doing the things we can."&#12288;

THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT keeps petabytes (that’s a million gigabytes each) of information secret every year — some of it highly sensitive, some of it hardly. A 1972 diplomatic telegram that discusses the exchange of gifts between the United States and China — musk oxen from the Nixon administration in return for two Chinese pandas — was labeled confidential, and it wasn’t declassified until 1997.

Americans have a right to know what the government is doing on their behalf or in their name, except in exceptional circumstances. A functioning democracy requires the people to hold their government to account. Accountability, in turn, requires knowledge about government activities. It also requires access to information about what the government has done in the past, and how that worked or didn’t. A complex and cautious system can even harm national security, keeping information from people within and outside government who could help make sense of it.

Since the executive branch has control over most of the procedure, the White House should take the problem of over-classification seriously and convene a steering committee immediately to implement some of the board’s sensible suggestions. Even if that means some of America’s critical musk-oxen secrets slip out a little earlier.

TOKYO — Japanese regulators have found inadequate fireproofing at more than one fifth of the nuclear reactors that went offline after the 2011 Fukushima crisis, a major daily said on Tuesday.

The finding could delay their restart by several years in some cases, the Mainichi Shimbun said.

More than 10 of Japan's 50 reactors, excluding those at Fukushima, have flaws in fireproofing, the paper quoted sources at the industry ministry and the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) as saying.

The Mainichi said these include the use of combustible electrical cables and equipment and machines sited too close together, potentially allowing a fire to spread even though the equipment is indispensable for maintaining safety.

Wakeup call for Japan's politiciansIn an Asahi Shimbun survey 81 percent of respondents answered that the LDP's victory was because of "disappointment with the DPJ government," compared with only 7 percent that thought it was due to "support for the LDP's policies."-------------Here the most telling statistic is voter turnout: At 59.3 percent it was the lowest in Japan's postwar history. Considering it was the first election after the 3/11 "triple disasters" and that it came at a time when there are heightened concerns over Japan's economy, as well as raised tensions with neighbors in East Asia, there were many reasons for people to vote.

The small turnout cannot simply be dismissed as voter apathy. Notably there was a 10 percent drop from the 2009 elections. This suggests something deeper: a growing sense of frustration and alienation among the Japanese public toward those tasked with ruling them. This may be expected given the small-minded behavior of many of their politicians, but such a state of affairs is deeply problematic for Japan's democracy in the long run.-----------Another displaced Fukushima resident, Takako Kuroki, summed up this divide between those affected and those tasked with improving their situation: "They have no idea how much we are suffering."-------------If a massive natural disaster and the world's second-worst nuclear accident have not been enough to spur the country's politicians into action, it is hardly surprising that the public is losing faith in them. This situation is deeply corrosive for Japan's democracy in the long term. [link to www.japantimes.co.jp]

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe appears willing to approve the construction of more nuclear reactors, abandoning the goal set by his predecessor to end the nation's reliance on atomic power by the 2030s.

"The new reactors will be totally different from those at Tepco's Fukushima No. 1 plant that caused the crisis," Abe said on a TV program Sunday. "We will be building them with consent obtained from the Japanese people."

Fukushima Diary will research those forgotten pieces of facts and find the meanings hidden in the heaps of data. It’s been almost 20 months since 311. Finding the trend from demographic statistics, trade statistics and plant data to provide international experts with new facts is becoming possible. Fukushima Diary will be the research and analysis center specialized in Fukushima accident.

When discussing the lack of lights in nearby houses, Toshimitsu's voice darkened as he said, "I understand there are people who don't want to return." Looking at the town, with temperatures nearly below freezing, he added, "But if no one returns first, the town won't return to its former self. I don't want to end my life in a temporary home. I think that recovery will start from us doing the things we can.

Quoting: Anonymous Coward 30887249

It will never again be the home they left....The people make the town.Tepco has taken this away, forever.

Fukushima Diary will research those forgotten pieces of facts and find the meanings hidden in the heaps of data. It’s been almost 20 months since 311. Finding the trend from demographic statistics, trade statistics and plant data to provide international experts with new facts is becoming possible. Fukushima Diary will be the research and analysis center specialized in Fukushima accident.

Quoting: Waterbug

i think this is what he was alluding to in a personal chat last week....

GLP's best Fuku thread: Thread: *** Fukushima *** and other nuclear-----updates and linkstwitter: #citizenperth“If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on it, I would use the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I knew the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.”- Albert Einstein

The operating licenses on the two nuclear reactors at Limerick expire Oct. 26, 2024, for Unit 1, and June 22, 2029, for Unit 2.

Exelon has submitted a request for a 20-year extension on both licenses, and a final decision had been expected as early as this coming April.

Following in the wake of the Japanese Fukushima disaster and an unforeseen earthquake near a Virginia nuclear plant a year earlier, it was revealed in May that the existence of an earthquake fault beneath Exelon Nuclear’s Limerick Generating Station would not be a factor considered by the government in licensing renewal.

At Limerick, ground was broken in 2007 for a dry cask storage system that is now storing the plant’s older, colder spent fuel. All the fuel that has ever been used at Limerick since it began operating remains on site to this day.

Out of the nation’s 104 operational nuclear power reactors, the NRC says 71 have been approved for license renewals while 14, including the Limerick units, are under review.In its entire history, the NRC has never denied a license renewal request.

TOKYO — Japanese regulators have found inadequate fireproofing at more than one fifth of the nuclear reactors that went offline after the 2011 Fukushima crisis, a major daily said on Tuesday.

The finding could delay their restart by several years in some cases, the Mainichi Shimbun said.

More than 10 of Japan’s 50 reactors, excluding those at Fukushima, have flaws in fireproofing, the paper quoted sources at the industry ministry and the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) as saying. [link to www.japantoday.com] .

Japan is in a fix over its growing plutonium stockpile. Its plans to use the reprocessed fuelhas run into glitchesHow is an atomic-powered island nation riddled with fault lines supposed to handle its nuclear waste? Part of the answer was supposed to come from this windswept village along Japan’s northern coast.

Good intentions

By hosting a high-tech facility that would convert spent fuel into a plutonium-uranium mix designed for the next generation of reactors, the town of Rokkasho was supposed to provide fuel while minimizing nuclear waste storage problems.

Hitch in the plan

Those ambitions are falling apart because years of attempts to build a “fast breeder” reactor, which would use the reprocessed fuel, appear to be ending in failure.Rokkasho’s reprocessing plant extracted about 2 tons of plutonium from 2006 to 2010, but it has been plagued with mechanical problems, and its commercial launch has been delayed for years. The operator most recently delayed the official launch of its plutonium-extracting unit until next year.

A more permanent solution an underground repository that could keep nuclear waste safe for tens of thousands of years seems unlikely, if not impossible.The government has been drilling a test hole since 2000 in central Japan to monitor impact from underground water and conduct other studies needed to develop a potential disposal facility. But no municipality in Japan has been willing to accept a long-term disposal site. “There is too much risk to keep highly radioactive waste 300 meters (1,000 feet) underground anywhere in Japan for thousands or tens of thousands of years,” said Takatoshi Imada, a professor at Tokyo Technical University’s Decision Science and Technology department.AP

This is another announcement from the CO of the USS Ronald Reagan stating the plan before heading back south close to the Nuclear plant. "Circle William," a Navy phrase meaning to prepare for chemical, germ, or nuclear attack.

This is an announcement from the CO of the USS Ronald Reagan stating that we are back in "cleaner water".